Re: Scale? Great in theory
Sorry, but you are presenting alternative facts as truths here.
Data loss events with Scale were way back in the old days before Scale was HCI, and IIRC, they involved not doing things as per the manual. Since then, a lot has changed. The entire underlying Scale storage platform has changed - at least twice - as has Scale's business model. (They've gone from external storage to HCI.)
I simply do not believe that there have been spontaneous data loss events with the Scale HCI platform, especially since the conversion to the HEAT storage engine. Indeed, I've had quite the run of bad hard drives (thanks, Dell) myself, and the system has adjusted brilliantly to each event.
Also, you know, I have spent literally hundreds of hours over the past year putting a concerted effort into trying to break Scale, to little avail. (There is geek cred to being able to bug report neat things in front of a Slack channel full of many of one's professional heroes.)
Scale isn't the most feature rich solution out there. This isn't because KVM is in some way limited, but becuase Scale automate or choose not to expose all features to the client. Fair enough. That's a design choice.
But what they do expose is pretty badass. It's easy to use, and above all it is solid. I bet my own business on Scale. Many of my customers now run Scale. My lab's infrastructure runs on Scale. I kick the crap out of their stuff - both GA and beta - all day, every day and have been doing so for over a year now.
There is nothing wrong with Scale Computing's HCI solutions. Oh, I could give a seminar on where I think they are off on business focus in one area, or where I don't think partnerships or development are going fast enough. I've had those conversations with them any number of times. But the tech itself is solid.
As for discussions of market share being too small, well...I'm bound by NDA and can't go into detail, but you are (unsurprisingly) not accurate here either. Scale has enough flowing through to justify an IPO, but they are also patient enough to wait for the right time. This SimpliVity deal has proven that "right now" isn't it.
And why should they? Between existing customers, and some of the deals in late stages they'll be profitable soon enough. Scale's channel partners are enthusiastic to the point of religion, and their customers (myself included) are basically a cult.
Scale only has to play the long game - and believe me, they're aware of all the possible scenarios, as we debate it all in excruciating detail regularly - and they'll win. They can either buy out their backers and stay a privately held company, or IPO at time of their choosing. Their backers seem (so far) cool with the idea of taking time and aren't pushing for some massively leveraged IPO with shockingly punitive run rates gushing red ink.
Scale has problems, don't get me wrong. any company does. What they aren't is a company that peddles broken gear. Debate the features or "inflexibility" or various design choices all you want, but don't spread "alternative facts" about them. They don't deserve it, and neither do El Reg's readers.